1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to computer systems with graphical user interfaces. More particularly, this invention relates to assisting window selection in a graphical user interface.
2. Background
Computer technology is continuously advancing, resulting in modem computer systems which provide ever-increasing performance. One result of this increased performance is an increased use of computer systems by individuals in a wide variety of business, academic and personal pursuits. The increased performance of computer systems, as well as reduced cost for certain hardware components (such as processors and memory chips), has allowed individual computer systems to execute multiple applications concurrently. "Windows" or "windowing" refers to a technique in which one or more of these multiple applications can be displayed to a user concurrently using portions of a display device. Each of these multiple applications may also have multiple document windows displayed on the display device of the computer system.
The benefits of concurrent display of multiple windows on a display device are numerous. Among these benefits is the ability of the computer system user to substantially simultaneously view data from different applications (or different aspects of one or more applications). For example, an individual may have windows displayed which correspond to a word processing document, a spreadsheet document, and a video conference in progress.
One problem with multiple-window displays, however, is that displaying a large number of windows concurrently may confuse the user. When a large number of windows are displayed concurrently, it is often difficult for a user to locate and activate a particular window, or indeed even remember if a particular window is currently open (for example, a window may be opened but covered by one or more other open windows). Displaying a large number of windows may lead to confusion and/or frustration for the user, especially in real-time applications such as audio, video, and/or data conferencing. Thus, it would be beneficial to provide a method to simplify locating and activating windows in a multiple-window display.
One solution to this problem is to provide a list of current windows, including, for example, both open and minimized windows. For example, the Windows.TM. 95 operating system includes a TaskBar, typically along the bottom of the screen, which lists the current windows. The Windows.TM. 95 TaskBar displays the name and/or icon for each current window. However, these names and/or icons may not be recognized by the user. Furthermore, the names of current windows are often truncated in the Windows.TM. 95 TaskBar, especially when there are a large number of windows. This truncation may lead to even further confusion on the part of the user in locating a particular window.
Another solution to the problem of locating windows in a multiple-window display is to allow the user to cycle through one or more dialog boxes with the icons and/or names of the current windows. For example, in the Windows.TM. 3.1 operating system, a user can cycle through dialog boxes, each of which provides an icon and name of a currently executing application, by depressing and holding the Alt key (or the Alt and Shift keys) and then repeatedly pressing the Tab key. By way of another example, in the Windows.TM. 95 operating system, depressing and holding the Alt key (or the Alt and Shift keys) and then pressing the Tab key displays a dialog box with an icon for each of the current windows, and repeatedly pressing the Tab key allows the user to cycle through the icons displayed in the dialog box. However, these solutions also require the user to recognize the icon and/or name of the window he or she is looking for, which hinders window selection if he or she does not recognize the name or icon. Thus, it would be beneficial to provide a method to simplify locating windows in a multiple window display that does not require recognition by the user of the name and/or icon of the window.
Some of the problems which can arise in a multiple-window display of a typical graphical user interface are illustrated in FIG. 1. As illustrated in FIG. 1, six windows 101-106 are currently displayed on a display 100. Each of the windows 101-106 also includes a title bar at the top of the window which provides the name of the window. For example, window 101 has "WINDOW(1)" displayed in its title bar. However, due to overlapping windows, the names of some of the windows are not visible, such as windows 104 and 106. Additionally, due to the size of the windows, some window names may be truncated, such as window 103. Furthermore, there may be additional windows that are not visible because they are completely overlapped by another window(s). For example, multiple windows may be overlapped by window 105 and therefore not visible to the user.
FIG. 1 also shows a TaskBar 110 which includes the names of multiple windows which are available for selection by a user. However, as shown in FIG. 1, the window names are truncated, thereby making it difficult for the user to determine which name of TaskBar 110 corresponds to a specific window. This is particularly true when the windows include open "folders" and the entire path name is displayed as the title, as in the case of Windows.TM. 95, which can result in multiple names being truncated to the same name (for example, "C:.backslash.WIND . . . ").
As will be described in more detail below, the present invention provides a method for assisting in window selection to achieve these and other desired results which will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the description that follows.